Try some new things. I was amazed at what 20 minutes of swimming can generate strain wise vs the other things I do. Swimming is king when it comes to strain. (Don’t do it enough, but should probably try.)
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Good thing I’m heading to bandon on Monday! 36 a day for 5 days should set the tone!!
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Swimming is definitely underrated when it comes to cardio. Seems that people focus more on running/cycling.
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Check out jump rope too. Sounds dumb but go for 1 min straight. Than 2, etc. try to get to 5.
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I for one focus on running/cycling/weights because it’s much harder for me to drown. Anytime I try to swim a length or two I’m blown away by how hard it is - competitive swimmers are maybe the fittest people of all.
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Top tier competitive swimmers and cyclists have to be the fittest people on the planet. On the Whoop podcast where they interviewed Kevin Sprouse from EF Pro Cycling, Will brought up how cycling is very isolated around performance where the most finely tuned athlete usually wins. As opposed to other sports where talent is a huge component, like Tiger winning the US Open in '08 with a bad leg.
For those interested, heres a link to that podcast: https://www.whoop.com/thelocker/podcast-90-kevin-sprouse-medical-director-ef-pro-cycling/
Jump rope feels like it would fall into HIIT, which for sure has to be a good strain builder. I don’t do it much because I’m lazy and it’s brutal, but it for sure works. Not sure if there’s enough TIME involved to build massive strain though.
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Yea. It’s good to mix in with say lifting or something else to work in good cardio that doesn’t mean running/cycling/swimming
Thing is, you gotta mix it up or else you’ll see the downside, a plateau and you’ll feel like crap.
There was a whoop podcast a number of months ago where they said the ideal is to mix 17+ days and <8 days and to not have too many 12 days. Basically push super hard then pull way back and repeat.
So this challenge isn’t one I’m gonna be high on, cuz I’m actively trying to up my FTP on the bike and I need those down days. C’est la vie
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Makes prefect sense, and to go with that.
As you get more fit and your baseline increases you’re goign to have more average days “yellow” than you are green. It’s just the nature of being fit. Same with strain score; once you get comfy, say running 10ks… running a 5k isn’t really gonna do much for you.
I mean yeah swimming is great. But then you gotta reserve time at the pool, drive there, drive home and then you smell like chlorine all the time.
Running and biking, I just leave from my driveway and save all that time.
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Above you said 30min good running gets you a high strain. For me, someone who has run a literal shitton of miles in my life, a 30 minute run at an ok pace gets me like 6-7 strain max. Sometimes whoop won’t pick it up as an activity because my HR won’t go high enough for long enough.
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Just to be clear, it’s both impressive and insanely annoying to be friends with Mark.
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I think, oddly enough, that’s why some poeple complain about whoop. Say your not fit at all; you put it on, do it correctly for 7-9 months. Then all of a sudden, a 10 min walk/run doesn’t even register.
And vise versa, if you’re not super fit (speaking purely cardio; since that’s how whoop does it’s magic) if you’re not really fit, a 10-15 min walk/run may register as something.
It’s kinda cool when you really sit and think about what is going into the magic sauce. Weither the results the of sauce are always accurate, meh. But the science is neat.
An example of this is yesterday I went to a baseball game, walked around nothign crazy. Apple Watch? CONGRATS ON 30 MIN OF “EXERCISE” Whoop? Here’s you normal 5 strain… fucking deal with it.
Mostly insanely annoying, and not cuz of my running
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I’ve taken to jumping rope without a rope during my set breaks while lifting. Makes a major difference in strain over the hour session.
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A cardio in and cardio out with lifting in between will knock me on my ass
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Jumping rope is such an underrated workout. As a former middle school Jump Rope for Heart winner I still utilize it in my daily routine. During COVID when my gym time plummeted it was a perfect at home replacement.
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